Sears, sir," repeated the driver of the truck-wagon, "I'm proud to see you on deck again, sir. Darned if I ain't!"
The captain leaned forward and shook the big red hand extended across the fence pickets.
"Judah Cahoon, you old salt herrin'," he cried heartily, "I'm just as glad to see you! But what in the world are you doin' here in Bayport?"
CHAPTER II
Mr. Cahoon's grin vanished and the expression of his face above the whiskers indicated extreme surprise.
"What am I doin' here?" he repeated. "Didn't you know I was here, Cap'n Sears?"
"Of course I didn't. The last I heard of you you had shipped as cook aboard the Gallant Rover and was bound for Calcutta, or Singapore or somewhere in those latitudes. And that was only a year ago. What are you doin' on the Cape and pilotin' that kind of a craft?" indicating the truck wagon.
The question was ignored. "Didn't they never tell you I was here?" demanded Judah. "Didn't that Joel Macomber tell you I been hailin' him every time he crossed my bows, askin' about you every day since you run on the rocks? Didn't he tell you that?"
"No."
"Never give you my respects nor—nor kind rememberances, nor nawthin'?"
"Not a word. Never so much as mentioned your name."
"The red-headed shark!"
"There! There! Sshh! Never mind him. Come in here and sit down a minute, can't you? Or are you in a hurry?"
"Eh? No-o, I ain't in no 'special hurry. Just got a deck load of seaweed aboard carting it up home, that's all."
"Home? What home?"
"Why, where I'm livin'. I call it home; anyhow it's all the home I got. Eh? Why, Cap'n Sears, ain't they never told you that I'm livin' at the Minot place?"
"The Minot place! Why—why, man alive, you don't mean the General Minot place, do you?"
"Um-hm. That's what folks down here call it. There ain't no Generals there though."
"And you are livin' in the General Minot house? Look here, Judah, are you trying to make a fool of me?"
Mr. Cahoon's countenance—that portion of it above the whisker tidemark, of course—registered horror at the thought. He had been cook and steward aboard Captain Kendrick's ships for many voyages and his feeling for his former skipper was close kin to idolatry.
"Eh?" he gasped. "Me try to make a fool out of you, Cap'n Sears? Me? No, no, I got some sense left, I hope."
Kendrick smiled. "Oh, the thing isn't impossible, Judah," he observed dryly. "It has been done. I have been made a fool of and more than once. … But there, never mind that. I want to know what you are doin' at the General Minot place. Come aboard here and tell me about it. You can leave your horse, can't you? He doesn't look as if he was liable to run away."
"Run away! Him?" Judah snorted disgust. "Limpin' Moses! He won't run away for the same reason old Cap'n Eben Gould didn't say his prayers—he's forgot how. I was out with that horse on the flats last week and the tide pretty nigh caught us. The water in the main channel was so deep that it was clean up to the critter's garboard strake, and still, by the creepin', I couldn't get him out of a walk. I thought there one spell he might drift away, but I knew dum well he'd never run. … Whoa! you—you hipponoceros you!" addressing the ancient animal, who was placidly gnawing at the Macomber hitching post. "'Vast heavin' on that post! Look at the blasted idiot!" with huge disgust. "To home, by the creepin', he'll turn up his nose at good hay and then he'll cruise out here and start to swaller a wood fence. Whoa! Back! Back, or I'll—I'll bore a hole in you and scuttle you."
The old horse condescended to back for perhaps two feet, a proceeding which elicited a grunt of grudging approval from Mr. Cahoon. The latter then settled himself with a thump upon the settee beside Captain Kendrick.
"How's the spars splicin'?" he inquired, with a jerk of his thumb toward the captain's legs. "Gettin' so you can navigate with 'em? Stand up under sail, will they?"
"Not for much of a cruise," replied Sears, using the same nautical phraseology. "I shan't be able to run under anything but a jury rig for a good while, I'm afraid. But never mind the spars. I want to know how you happen to be down here in Bayport, and especially what on earth you are doin' at the Minot place? Somebody died and left you a million?"
Mr. Cahoon's whiskers were split again by his wide grin.
"If I was left a million I'd die," he observed with emphasis. "No, no, nothin' like that, Cap'n. I'm there along of … humph! You know young Ogden Minot, don't you?"
"No, I guess I don't. I don't seem to remember him. Ogden Minot, you say?"
"Sartin. Why, you must have run afoul of him, Cap'n Sears. He has a—a sort of home moorin's at a desk in Barstow Brothers' shippin' office up on State Street. Has some kind of berth with the firm, they tell me, partner or somethin'. You must have seen him there."
"Well, if I have I. … Hold on a minute! Seems to me I do remember him. Tall fellow, dresses like a tailor's picture; speaks as if—"
"As if the last half of every word was comin' on the next boat. That's him. Light complected, wears his whiskers wing and wing, like a schooner runnin' afore the wind. Same kind of side whiskers old Cap'n Spencer of the Farewell used to carry that voyage when I fust run afoul of you. You was second mate and I was cook, remember. You recollect the skipper's side whiskers, Cap'n Sears? Course you do! Stuck out each side of his face pretty nigh big as old-fashioned studdin' sails. Fo'mast hands used to call 'em the old man's 'homeward-bounders.' Ho, ho! Why, I've seen them whiskers blowin'—"
Kendrick interrupted.
"Never mind Cap'n Spencer's whiskers," he said. "Stick to your course, Judah. What about this Ogden Minot?"
"Everythin' bout him. If 'twan't for him I wouldn't be here now. No sir-ee, 'stead of settin' here swappin' yarns with you, Cap'n Sears, I'd be somewheres off Cape Horn, cookin' lobscouse and doughboy over a red-hot galley stove. Yes sir, that's where I'd be. And I'd just as soon be here, and a dum sight juster, as the feller said. Ho, ho! Tut, tut, tut! You can't never tell, can you? How many times I've stood in my galley with a gale of wind blowin', and my feet braced so's I wouldn't pitch into the salt-horse kittle every time she rolled, and thinkin'—"
"There, there, Judah! Bring her up, bring her up. You're three points off again."
"Eh? So I be, so I be. I'll try and hold her nose in the notch from now on. Well, 'twas last October, a year ago, when I'd about made up my mind to go cook in the Gallant Rover, same as you said. I hadn't signed articles, you understand, but I was cal'latin' to, and I was down on Long Wharf where the Rover was takin' cargo, and her skipper, Cap'n Gustavus Philbrick, 'twas—he was a Cape man, one of the Ostable Philbricks—he asked me if I wouldn't cruise up to the Barstow Brothers' office and fetch down some papers that was there for him. So I didn't have nawthin' to do 'special, and 'twas about time for my eleven o'clock—when I'm in Boston I always cal'late to hist aboard one eleven o'clock, rum and sweetenen' 'tis generally, at Jerry Crockett's saloon on India Street and. … Aye, aye, sir! All right, all right, Cap'n Sears. I'll keep her in the notch, don't worry. Well—er—er—what was I sayin'? Oh, yes! Well, I had my eleven o'clock and then I cruised up to the Barstow place, and the fust mate there, young Crosby Barstow 'twas, he was talkin' with this Ogden Minot. And when I hove in sight young Barstow, he sings out: 'And here's another Cape Codder, Ogden,' he says. 'You two ought to know each other. Cahoon,' says he, 'this is Mr. Ogden Minot; his folks hailed from Bayport. That's down your way, ain't it?'
"'You bet!' says I. 'My home port's Harniss, and that's right next door. Minot? Minot?' I says, tryin' to recollect, you understand.